Senior/Staff Platform Engineer

Mbianchi; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 185,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Mbianchi seeks a staff-level engineer to own the internal developer platform and drive outcomes across Kubernetes, cloud infra, and tooling. You will stay hands-on with APIs and tooling while guiding cross-team decisions and improving adoption.

You will shape the platform roadmap, build self-service capabilities, and ensure secure, observable, and scalable product infrastructure. This role emphasizes developer-centric design and practical leadership.

Qualifications

• Deep production experience with Kubernetes and at least one major public cloud; multi-cloud experience is useful when it comes with restraint.
• Strong software engineering in Go, Python, TypeScript, or Java, including API and distributed-system design.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform or OpenTofu, GitOps, CI/CD, observability, and secure software supply chains.
• A record of building platforms for other engineers and improving adoption, not only operating infrastructure.
• Clear technical writing, architecture communication, and the ability to lead decisions across teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the platform architecture and roadmap with a product mindset, balancing developer experience, reliability, security, and cost.
• Build self-service APIs, CLIs, templates, and golden paths for provisioning environments, shipping software, and operating services.
• Standardize infrastructure as code, GitOps, CI/CD, secrets, policy, observability, and Kubernetes lifecycle practices without hiding useful escape hatches.
• Interview platform users, measure adoption and lead time, and remove friction based on evidence rather than platform-team intuition.
• Mentor engineers and influence application, security, SRE, and product teams without relying on hierarchy.

Skills

Kubernetes

Go

Python

TypeScript

Java

API design

Distributed systems

Technical leadership

Tools

Terraform

OpenTofu

GitOps

CI/CD

Observability

Job description

Developer platforms, Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, reliability, and self-service people do not need a ticket to use.

The mandate.

Own the outcome, stay close to the implementation, and improve the system around the work.

Build and evolve an internal developer platform that turns cloud, Kubernetes, delivery, security, and observability capabilities into paved roads teams actively choose.

This is a staff-shaped individual-contributor role: own ambiguous cross-team problems, set technical direction, stay hands-on in APIs and tooling, and treat developers as users rather than ticket submitters.

Impact Material

Agency High

Management Context, then space

Bureaucracy Low

What this role owns.

• OWN-01

  Own the platform architecture and roadmap with a product mindset, balancing developer experience, reliability, security, and cost.

• OWN-02

  Build self-service APIs, CLIs, templates, and golden paths for provisioning environments, shipping software, and operating services.

• OWN-03

  Standardize infrastructure as code, GitOps, CI/CD, secrets, policy, observability, and Kubernetes lifecycle practices without hiding useful escape hatches.

• OWN-04

  Interview platform users, measure adoption and lead time, and remove friction based on evidence rather than platform-team intuition.

• OWN-05

  Mentor engineers and influence application, security, SRE, and product teams without relying on hierarchy.

What this needs.

• Deep production experience with Kubernetes and at least one major public cloud; multi-cloud experience is useful when it comes with restraint.
• Strong software engineering in Go, Python, TypeScript, or Java, including API and distributed-system design.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform or OpenTofu, GitOps, CI/CD, observability, and secure software supply chains.
• A record of building platforms for other engineers and improving adoption, not only operating infrastructure.
• Clear technical writing, architecture communication, and the ability to lead decisions across teams.

What success looks like.

• New services and environments can be created safely without queueing for a platform ticket.
• Developer onboarding and deployment lead time drop while platform adoption and user satisfaction rise.
• Reliability, security, and cost improve without turning the platform into a mandatory abstraction tax.
• Teams understand the paved road, the escape hatches, and the trade-offs behind both.

Top-quartile ranges for this scope. Ranges are base salary; equity and bonus may be additional. The cash/stock split is negotiable.

EMEA €185k–€250k Base salary Top-quartile EMEA target

US remote $220k–$290k Base salary Remote US target

US major hubs $270k–$325k Base salary San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and comparable markets

Who you need to be

• At least 7+ years of software, platform, infrastructure, or reliability engineering experience.
• Built platform APIs, self-service workflows, and automation used by multiple engineering teams.
• Deep production experience with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, infrastructure as code, GitOps, and CI/CD.
• Strong programming skills, with a preference for Go, Python, or TypeScript.
• Led cross-team platform initiatives and improved developer adoption without relying on mandates.

Looks compatible.

Real impact, useful autonomy, and enough technical depth to finish the job.